The twenty-six essays in this volume examine the process of creating the Middle Ages. In doing so, they honour Leslie Workman, who has led the revival of the study of medievalism in the past two generations, and leads this sub-discipline towards the comprehensiveness that Lord Acton as early as 1859 had promised: 'Two great principles divide the world, and contend for the mastery: antiquity and the Middle Ages. These are the two civilizations that have preceded us, the two elements of which ours is composed. All political as well as religious questions reduce themselves practically to this. This is the great dualism that runs through our society.` While using differnt approaches and discussing topics in a variety of specialised fields, the contributions clearly centre on negotiating the reception of medieval culture in the Early Modern, Modern and Contemporary periods, thus presenting a broad and representative picture of current research in medievalism. Contributors include: Tabula Gratulatoria (Leslie Workman); Richard Utz and Tom Shippey, 'Medievalism in the Modern World: Introductory Perspectives'; Theresa Ann Sears, 'The Anxiety of Authority and Medievalizing the New World'; Richard Osberg, 'Humanist Allusions and Medieval Themes: The Receyving of Queen Anne, London, 1533'; John Simons, 'Christopher Middleton and Elizabethan Medievalism'; Bernard Rosenthal, 'Medievalism and the Salem Witch Trials'; Clare Simmons, 'Absent Presence: The Romantic-Era Magna Charta and the English Constitution'; R.J. Smith, 'The Swanscombe Legend and the Historiography of Kentish Gavelkind'; David Barclay, 'Representing the Middle Ages: Court Festivals in Nineteenth-Century Prussia'; Ulrich Muller, 'Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles? Walther von der Vogelweide, Hoffman von Fallersleben and the Song of the Germans: Medievalism, Nationalism and/or Racism'; Roger Simpson, 'St. George and the Pendragon'; Tom Shippey, 'The Death-Song of Ragnar Lodbrok: A Study in Sensibilities'; Alice Chandler, 'Carlyle and the Medievalism of the North'; Werner Wunderlich, 'Medieval Images: Joseph Viktor von Scheffel's Ekkehard and St. Gall'; Felicia Bonaparte, 'The (Fai)Lure of the Aesthetic Ideal and the (Re)Formation of Art: The Medieval Paradigm that Frames The Picture of Dorian Gray'; William Calin, 'Dante on the Edwardian Stage: Stephen Phillips' Paolo and Francesca; Kathleen Verduin, 'Medievalism, Classicism, and the Fiction of E.M. Forster; William D. Paden, 'Reconstructing the Middle Ages: The Monk's Sermon in The Seventh Seal; Rosemary Welsh, 'Theorizing Medievalism: The Case of Gone with the Wind; Gwendolyn Morgan, 'Gnosticism, the Middle Ages, and the Search for Responsibility: Im

The Middle Ages continue to provide an important touchstone for the way the modern West presents itself and its relationship with the rest of the globe. This volume brings together leading scholars of literature and history, together with musicians, novelists, librarians, and museum curators in order to present exciting, up-to-date perspectives on how and why the Middle Ages continue to matter in the 20th and 21st centuries. Presented here, their essays represent a unique dialogue between scholars and practitioners of 'medievalism'. Framed by an introductory essay on the broad history of the continuing evolution of the idea of 'The Middle Ages' from the 14th century to the present day, chapters deal with subjects as diverse as: the use of Old Norse sagas by Republican deniers of climate change; the way figures like the Irish hero Cu Chulainn and St Patrick were used to give legitimacy to political affiliations during the Ulster 'Troubles'; the use of the Middle Ages in films by Pasolini and Tarantino; the adoption of the 'Green Man' motif in popular culture; Lady Gaga's manipulation of medieval iconography in her music videos; the translation of medieval poetry from manuscript to digital media; and the problem of writing national history free from the 'toxic medievalism' of the 19th and 20th centuries. This book will appeal to anyone interested in the Middle Ages and its impact on recent political and cultural history. It is dedicated to the memory of Seamus Heaney, who gave his last overseas lecture in St. Andrews in 2013, the year this book was conceived, and whose late poetry this book also discusses.

Rich collisions and fresh perspectives illuminate the profound continuities of thought and practice that have marked Western art through the ages This groundbreaking study offers a radical new reading of art since the Middle Ages. Moving across the familiar period lines set out in conventional histories, Alexander Nagel explores the deep connections between modern and premodern art to reveal the underlying patterns and ideas traversing centuries of artistic practice. In a series of episodic chapters, he reconsiders from an innovative double perspective a number of key issues in the history of art, from iconoclasm and idolatry to installation and the museum as institution. He shows how the central tenets of modernism – serial production, site-specificity, collage, the readymade, and the questioning of the nature of art and authorship – were all features of earlier times before modernity, revived by recent generations. Nagel examines, among other things, the importance of medieval cathedrals to the 1920s Bauhaus movement, the parallels between Renaissance altarpieces and modern preoccupations with surface and structure; the relevance of Byzantine models to Minimalist artists; the affinities between ancient holy sites and early earthworks; and the similarities between the sacred relic and the modern readymade. Alongside the work of leading 20th-century medievalist writes such as Walter Benjamin, Marshall McLuhan, Leo Steinberg, and Duchamp, Kurt Schwitters, Robert Smithson, and Damien Hirst. The effect of these encounters goes in two directions at once: each age offers new insights into the other, deepening our understanding of both past and present, and providing a new set of reference points that reframe the history of art itself.

People in the Middle Ages and the early modern age more often suffered from imprisonment and enslavement than we might have assumed. Incarceration and Slavery in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age approaches these topics from a wide variety of perspectives and demonstrates collectively the great relevance of the issues involved. Both incarceration and slavery were (and continue to be) most painful experiences, and no one was guaranteed exemption from it. High-ranking nobles and royalties were often the victims of imprisonment and, at times, had to wait many years until their ransom was paid. Similarly, slavery existed throughout Christian Europe and in the Arab world. However, while imprisonment occasionally proved to be the catalyst for major writings and creativity, slaves in the Ottoman empire and in Egypt succeeded in rising to the highest position in society (Janissaries, Mamluks, and others).

The Middle Ages continue to provide an important touchstone for the way the modern West presents itself and its relationship with the rest of the globe. This volume brings together leading scholars of literature and history, together with musicians, novelists, librarians, and museum curators in order to present exciting, up-to-date perspectives on how and why the Middle Ages continue to matter in the 20th and 21st centuries. Presented here, their essays represent a unique dialogue between scholars and practitioners of 'medievalism'.

This collection examines the intersection of the discourses of “disability” and “monstrosity” in a timely and necessary intervention in the scholarly fields of Disability Studies and Monster Studies. Analyzing Medieval and Early Modern art and literature replete with images of non-normative bodies, these essays consider the pernicious history of defining people with distinctly non-normative bodies or non-normative cognition as monsters. In many cases throughout Western history, a figure marked by what Rosemarie Garland-Thomson has termed “the extraordinary body” is labeled a “monster.” This volume explores the origins of this conflation, examines the problems and possibilities inherent in it, and casts both disability and monstrosity in light of emergent, empowering discourses of posthumanism.

This groundbreaking book examines the complex relationships between individuals and communities in the profound transitions of the early modern period. Taking a global and comparative approach to historical issues, the distinguished contributors show that individual and community created and recreated one another in the major structures, interactions, and transitions of early modern times. Offering an important contribution to our understanding both of the early modern period and of its historiography, this volume will be an invaluable resource for scholars working in the fields of medieval, early modern, and modern history, and on the Renaissance and Reformation.